The pair also worked together on Whiplash, about drummers, and on a 2009 student project that went on to receive theatrical distribution, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, about a jazz trumpeter.
He enlisted his former Harvard roommate Justin Hurwitz to write the songs and score for the film.
A musical romance about a jazz pianist ( Ryan Gosling) and an aspiring actress ( Emma Stone) set in the City of Angels, La La Land was written and directed by Damien Chazelle, the man behind the 2014 Oscar winner Whiplash.
